300
by thewordweaves
Summary: A drabble collection, where each piece does not exceed the wordcount of 300, with a variety of pairings and characters and whatnot. Enjoy!
1. Beginnings

Beginnings, Usopp thought, were always the most fun to weave. He was telling a story to Chopper, who stared with rapt attention, smile wide as he waited for him to begin.

"This is a story about a captain!"

"Captain Usopp?" Chopper squealed, but Usopp shook his head.

"No," he said gravely. "It's about a captain who lived long ago, who dreamed of the sea, all the while seeking his love! But first…"

Chopper ooh-ed and ahh-ed in all of the right places, even screaming once (much to his embarrassment). Chopper was the best person to tell stories to; he understood that to get over your fear of monsters, sometimes you had to believe in heroes. This was about the tree island, where a witch held intelligent birds hostage and the hero saved the day.

Before getting on this crew, Usopp mused, he used to love crafting endings, where the hero won, where they lived happily ever after. Hell, even when he did get onto the crew, he dreamed of a happy ending with him, the brave warrior and Kaya, smiling at his tales.

Now? He didn't want it to end, even if it meant prolonging his dream, everybody's dream; he knew they'd get there.

"So?" Chopper prompted, as Usopp paused in mid-story. "What happened? Did he go back to his love?"

Usopp tapped his nose. "Sorta."

"What do you mean?" The reindeer demanded, becoming impatient.

"His love was—" _Sorry, Kaya_ "—adventure! So there isn't an end, and he went on having them. This is just the beginning."

From the galley, Sanji's voice rang out, "That's a cop-out ending."

Luffy sprang himself between Usopp and Chopper, grabbing both of their heads affectionately.

"I like it," he declared stoutly, and that was captain's orders, so that was that.


	2. Hatchan

Hatchan knew very little.

He knew darkness, and he knew pain. He knew the screams of his brothers, the shouts of the humans. He knew the brand. Once, he reasoned, he must have known something else; whispers of days spent racing amongst turbid waves and the taste of his mother's takoyaki still weaved throughout his dream.

But mostly, now, he knew darkness, and he knew fear and he knew with the absolute certainty that Hatchan did not feel very often, that he could not escape.

Then there was a light.

"Join my crew," the voice said, and it was low and guttural, with the rasp of a fishman. "And I'll free you. You'll get revenge on these bastards."

Hatchan gaped, simple instinct kicking in when his common sense failed. Something in the glint of the shark's eyes, the bloody stain on the tip of his razor sharp nose sent apprehension coiling throughout his body.

"You're an octopus," the voice said. "You're strong. Come on."

Despite his misgivings, and his fear, he reached into the light and grasped his hand, being thrust out of his prison and looked around, tasted freedom, tasted hope.

"I'm not," Hatchan said apologetically, voice cracking with the exertion of running, "a very violent person."

Arlong – as Hatchan would later learn his name – smiled. "You'll learn."

The smile sent a shudder running in corkscrews down Hatchan's spine. It was cruel. More man than fish.

Then, as the masters took them down, Hatchan tasted blood.

Such prices come, he was later to learn, with freedom.


	3. Contact

People had always thrived on human contact, Nami thought. Wherever she looked, before joining the Strawhats, people had embraced. On Merry, people didn't so much touch as they did crash, Usopp dancing across the deck and oh, Chopper dashing across in the _opposite direction_… oh God, and Luffy was purposely running into the mix.

That was besides the point, anyways, she thought, shielding her eyes from the ensuing chaos, as the only person of the crew who didn't seem to thrive on such contact was the ever elusive swordsman. Even now, he leaned against a wall, three swords grasped in a loose embrace.

"You know, Zoro," Nami said, leaning over his shoulder, behind him, "normal people use stuffed animals."

She received a barely muffled snort in response.

"Haven't you thought of, oh…" She tapped a finger to her lip in mock thought. "Using something a little softer than weapons?"

"Nope." Really, she thought, it was absolutely ridiculous, the amount of attachment he had to things that inflicted death and--

She found herself (a delicate flower of a woman!) being unceremoniously thrown between Zoro's legs, her head nestling against his chest. It was warm, and not necessarily uncomfortable, but humiliating nevertheless.

"You're right," Zoro hummed. "This is better."

Nami started a protest, but he interrupted her, thrusting his swords into her grasp. "Hold these.

She sighed and bleakly accepted that she'd be here for the next little while as a loud snore escaped from Zoro's extremely uncouth mouth.

Besides, it had been a long time since she slept with her teddy bear, and it was kind of nice. Kind of.

And when it came to Zoro, she figured, closing her eyes, being told to hold his swords was the highest form of compliment you can get.

They snored.


	4. Home

Life at the dojo wasn't the way Zoro imagined it, not really.

Most of the stories that he had heard of a group of boys in one setting had heartwarming moments, filled with mischief and other such mostly-harmless hijinks. Like a family. He wasn't quite sure what that would feel like.

But it wasn't this. Koshiro was gentle, firm, but he wasn't a father. He pushed too hard, not with the vehemence of a father, but a mentor. When it came down to it, he was a world away, miles of distance within coexistence. But he didn't mind, not really, because Koshiro was Kuina's and Kuina was Koshiro's and it probably hurt to look at him as much as it hurt Zoro to look at Koshiro.

The other boys weren't like brothers. They eyed Zoro with fascination, admiration, even, but did not reach out. They weren't focused enough, they were too weak, too timid. With a Sensei like the one they had, Zoro had thought with scorn, it was foolish not to be focused. They were all here to become master swordsmen. Was there a better aspiration?

When it came down to it, the dojo wasn't a place for a family, for a neglected daughter and a harried father, but it was a home. And that was all Zoro needed, would ever need. He decided this at a young age.

But still, tied to a cross and watching Luffy tumble towards him, his gut churned in a way that meant he cared; there was only one whose ambitions matched his own: the future Pirate King. For the first time, with the man who accepted his goals steadfastly, warmth enveloped him, discomforting in its intensity.

So this was family?

Even if he didn't need it, he soon found, he wanted it.


	5. Fear

Sometimes Banchina wondered if she was a bad mother. Bad for loving a man who didn't love her back. Bad for letting a child grow up fatherless.

When she had met Yasopp, she had been fearless. She feared not the untouchable pirate, nor the stigma that came with the absence of marriage, not the knowledge that his true love was the sea, and not that she bore his child. She cared only for love, as brightly as it burned within the moment, and swore that the child would remain to remind her of him. He who would come back. He who had to come back.

It was harder raising a child than she could ever imagine, even harder when he asked about his father whose lack of presence hung over the house like a shroud. When she told stories, she did not speak of violence or abandonment, harsh words or imminent goodbyes. She spoke of romance and greatness and all things young boys looked up to; Usopp clung onto these ideas as other boys did to their fathers.

As she lay in bed, dying - her, the once fearless maiden with the searing rendezvous with the deadly pirate! - she continued to tell stories. She gave Usopp the gift of hope, the same hope that she kept within her every day, that Yasopp would come back, that she would be cured, a million impossible things that had just the slightest chance of coming true. She gave Usopp the gift of belief, in heroes, in fairy tales, in her.

Then, once she died, she gave Usopp the most precious gift of all: the gift of fear. Being fearless never served her well; Usopp may never experience the fairy tale, but he would believe, and sometimes, that was just as good.

She closed her eyes.


	6. Freedom

"You're free now," Usopp had said to Nami, sincerity welling up in his round eyes, honesty in the calloused hand wrapped around her arm, the heady smell of wood covering him like a blanket. Then, in a moment, all tenderness was lost, and he danced back onto the deck, full of childish vigor, but Nami held the image of those serious eyes in her mind's eye.

Freedom. It was such a foreign concept that she had difficulty grasping it; had she been a weaker woman, it would have driven her to tears. It had driven her to tears, rocking below deck in the room she had to herself, smelling the salt water, feeling the beli in her hands, hearing the snores from the other room and knowing that it was hers. All hers. And she didn't have to stay, only stayed because she wanted to, because she loved.

Sometimes, she wondered if freedom was all there was to it. She couldn't imagine Luffy as anything but free, straw hat askew and smile crooked. And Zoro couldn't be anything but free, face callous and cruel until she found him asleep on the deck. And Sanji, in all his twisting glory, one arm extended to her in love and food extended in battle.

But that left Usopp, messy haired, quick tongued, awkward limbed; could he be anything but free? Then, like a shot, she realized what it meant, watching his hands against Going Merry. It meant being able to tell his stories, and for nobody to laugh. Freedom meant being treated like a man. Freedom meant being afraid but knowing that it's iall right/i.

So maybe they weren't chasing adventure. Maybe they weren't chasing dreams. Hell, maybe they weren't chasing One Piece.

They chased freedom, and that tasted sweeter than any treasure.


	7. Sometimes

Sometimes, after a hard fight, after everybody wakes up, after everybody is bandaged, after everybody is finally healed again, Chopper retreats into his workspace. He cites the reason being that he needs to replenish his exhausted supplies, and everybody knows him well enough to ignore the clicking of hooves against the deck in the middle of the night. It's not exactly a lie. It's not the truth either, but it's not a lie.

Sometimes, after a hard fight, he wishes that they looked at him differently, not as a child in a reindeer-body, a child who doesn't know his own strength, a child who bursts into laughter at stories and weeps at the drop of the pin. But they are his nakama, and they see him for what he is, not what he can become, and he supposes he should be grateful for that. Sometimes, there is that hard ball in the bottom of his stomach, when he wonders what will happen if worst comes to worst.

Sometimes, after a hard fight, he wishes he could do more during a fight, but he lacks the drive of Zoro, the finesse of Sanji and wonders what he's good at. He's good at medicine. He's good at healing people, animals. But sometimes, he wants more. He knows what his body will react to by now, and he moves with care and precision, makes rumble ball after rumble ball.

Sometimes, that's not enough. He needs more. He's a doctor, so he should know what will turn him into the monster that will reign terror upon the masses, and he creates different rumble balls, ones he's not sure will work. He smashes them to pieces afterwards, most of the time.

But just in case, sometimes, he tucks them into his pack.

Just in case.


	8. Of Women's Clothing on Manly Men

It was only natural. There was an island for merpeople, for giants, and now, one for women and only women. It wasn't too bad; Nami had a good eye for clothing. Sanji had a pretty face, and legs that any woman would kill for...once she got them shaved. Usopp's long lashes and full lips coupled with beautifully thick hair once out of his bandanna made things easier, and as long as Chopper stayed in Brain Point, he'd be fine. Luffy was surprisingly easy, all round face, large eyes and slim figure.

Nami was beamed with pride as she made her boys march down the deck. Sure, they were mortified, but she wasn't. They looked _good_. "Very nice!" She crowed, to the mortification of Usopp and the glee of Sanji.

There was only one problem. Well, two.

"Franky! Zoro! Come on out!" She said with a world-weary sigh.

The two men stood in front of her, arms crossed. No amount of makeup could hide Zoro's furrowed brow and chiseled jaw, and Franky... had a metal nose. There was only so much makeup could do. She had clothed Zoro in a flattering green color, but not even the folds of fabric could hide his hulking shoulders and thick arms. It looked okay from the waist down, if you just ignored the fact that he stood in a very unladylike fashion.

"Don't look at me like that, Zoro," Nami snapped. "Look more ladylike." Zoro turned an unflattering red. That didn't help matters. Sighing, she cast her gaze towards what was hopefully a more feminine Franky.

Oh. Oh God.

She wedged her lower lip firmly underneath her front teeth and tears rolled silently down her face until she could hold it in no more and burst into hysterical laughter.

"You two," she said, gasping, "guard the ship."

--

NOTE; this was written for the prompt "Fashion Disasters" before the manga reached amazon island.


	9. Myth

Time was such a funny, insidious thing. Brook had long since lost his grasp on it; what use was time in a world where it was always dark? So for years, he scarcely kept track of time, and that was fine by him.

And then, suddenly, it seemed to matter all the more once he was able to step back out into the sun. Rookies were now legends, boys were men, and his own crew were simply babes back when he was a pirate, back when he laughed, back when he sang.

He laughed and sang now, of course, and they were bound to do wonderful things just as he was back then. Brook was never truly cut out to take Yorki's place, and he knew this. But Luffy, Luffy was a captain through and through. He would succeed. All he had to do was watch them tumble about the ship, providing songs and joy throughout. He could hear the legends now, and in his head, he composed them.

The Amazing Rubber Boy. The Mysterious Archaeologist. The Brilliant Inventor. The Beautiful Thief. The Fierce Swordsman. The Founder of All Blue. The Brave Warrior. The Blue-Nosed Doctor.

And what would he be? Even in a world as fantastic as his, some stories were too ridiculous to believe. The undying man upon a land of zombies stitched limb by limb? The singing skeleton amongst the crew of people more monstrous than even he? No, that was not the stuff of legend. Legends he knew were tales of celebrated triumph, not loss.

He would be something more intangible, more… abstract than that. It made sense, did it not? He was no longer the man who had set out to be a legend, but a skeleton who found joy elsewhere. The Laughing Skull.

Myth.


	10. Ink

Children hold onto familiar things. For some, it's a blanket, or a stuffed toy, or a favorite piece of clothing. For Robin, it was books. Curled in a chair and desperate for touch, she pushed her head against the spine and inhaled the familiar scents of old paper, ink and dust, wondering if her mother was smelling the same thing. Even alone, she had the scholars reading alongside her, history holding her hand through grievances and triumphs, and the mother she never knew guiding her stained fingers along the lines.

And later, when her mother's shadow could no longer guide her, Robin could not quite let go of books. Nights provided comfort in shelter and concealment, but days became steadily more difficult. Under the harsh daylight, she would still press her nose into a book. Breathe in, breath out. It was the only way to get by, day to day. If she dared to close her eyes for but a moment, she could almost pretend that she was back in Ohara. Home, where such small misdeeds had once seemed so unbearable.

Thoughts of home soon dwindled, yet she still clung to the few familiar things trickling between her fingers, holding her while the sand surrounding her filled her, choked her. Ink-black coffee, the printed word, the darkness of Crocodile's eyes-you did what you had to do to survive, and if that was it, she would do it. Slowly, the longing to live was being swallowed by a different longing, to rest, breathe, stop.

On the Thousand Sunny, this all stopped. When she closed her eyes, she could smell the ink of the newspaper, Nami's maps, Usopp's drawings, but she did not think of Ohara, of home.

Because, she realized, when it came to homes, she had found hers at last.


	11. Outside

For as long as he can remember, Usopp has been on the outside looking in. Children are cruel, and he's always been the odd one out, all skinny chest and long nose. Any remains of sympathy after the untimely death of his mother have long since dwindled in the face of his tall tales.

But that's okay. He has his dreams. And he has Kaya, who has had so little contact with the outside world that Usopp is a delight rather than an annoyance. Sometimes adults scold him at times for leading kids out of line and sigh wonderingly about him, knowing that he's seventeen already, it's time to stop dreaming and start thinking, it's time to start working and let go of that no-good father of his. Which he doesn't.

Suddenly, opportunity strikes in the form of none other than Roronoa Zoro himself, a navigator with a knowing smile, and the captain without a ship, the captain who is more child than man and more man than child all at the same time. This is his chance, because nobody else would want him. But can he really be on the same ship as these monsters? By the time Yasopp was seventeen, Usopp thinks glumly, he was probably out on the sea shooting rivals with his pistol, not shooting cans with a slingshot.

This thought is whisked away for once. If all he does is talk, he will never become a pirate, and sometimes, you just have to do something.

So he jumps on board, and hopes that for the first time in his life, he'll know what it's like to be a part of something great.


	12. Warmth

Brook loved the rain.

For fifty lonely years, he longed for the feel of the sun upon his bones for even a fleeting moment, but still he sailed endlessly on, unable to escape the grim fog that ensconced the Florian Triangle.

He tried to remember the good times with his comrades, but they soon became as obscured with fog as his ship was, their sunny faces replaced with nothing more than skulls. If he could only feel the sun, he thought, he could remember once more.

But ah, the rain! How could he ever forget? Those days, he could pretend that the sun was just around the bend and the Captain called for them to sing along to the rhythm of the raindrops to summon the sun. The sun never came out for Brook alone, but as long as it rained, he could pretend that it would as he slid and whooped along the deck, imagining his Captain's joyful cries behind him. The rain may have chilled him to the bone – yohoho! – but he could swear that it brought warmth with it.

On the deck of the Sunny, Brook stood still on the deck, face tilted up to stare up at the recent downpour, steadfastly ignoring the fact that it was filling up the holes and cracks in his skull.

A screech came from Chopper, "Brook! Don't stand out there, you'll catch a…" A moment of hesitation, for the reindeer was still puzzled by the mechanics of the skeleton. "…a chill."

"I won't," Brook said. "It's quite warm. Can't you feel it?"

"Feel what?"

There was a smile in his voice. "The sun."


	13. Father

Professor Clover isn't sure how things turned out the way they did. He remembers when he was younger, all dark hair and bright eyes, heart unburdened by the idea that one could be killed simply for pursuing knowledge. Knowledge had always seemed to be such a wondrous thing during those long nights spent hunched over dusty tomes, so full of potential. He is no adventurer, not like Olivia; his home is in the library where he can steer others the same way as him and continue to study. He had always wanted a regular family, a wife and a child and a little house by the sea, but there would always be time for that later, he thought. But not yet. Not while there are still things to study.

Eventually, all those he had thought of courting drifted away, aware that they would never replace his true love. Oh, Clover knows that things could have gone differently, but he would have never been willing to sacrifice his studies for some personal happiness. He knows that should he have started a family, they would be put at risk just through relation to him. The scholars are his family now.

And yet when he looks down at Nico Robin's quiet, solemn little face, the old yearning in his heart awakens and he is unable to resist taking into the heart of the library. It's a dangerous effort, and perhaps he is doing a disservice to this young one, but she brings him so much joy that he cannot bring himself to push her away.

He fears the very worst, but when he looks at her trusting eyes, he thinks that perhaps everything will turn out all right.


	14. Spark

He is so hungry. He never knew it was possible to be this hungry. Sanji feels as if there is a parasite that lines his veins, sapping him of vitality and strength and sucking his muscles out of him. It is a gnawing, constant sensation that grows and grows, as massive as the emptiness he feels inside. He watches in horror as he dwindles away, and when he closes his eyes he can imagine his skin stretched tight against him splitting with the pressure until he is just bones, bleached white by the sun.

He will make it - that is what he has promised himself, that is what he has to believe. But the negativity comes in droves as he hunches over, toothpick knees jabbing into his chest (that he can practically feel collapsing into himself, like a balloon slowly ridding itself of air) and weeps. And when he does weep, all he can think is, _stop crying, that is water, precious water _which makes him weep all the harder, for this is his life.

When it rains, he dances for joy. It makes him feel alive. But it is cold, and the joy grows stale with no food to warm him. Besides the pain, that is one of the worst things, the complete lack of warmth running through him, shaking hands even in the sunlight.

On the second day of rain, he tries to start a fire to warm him, convinces himself that if he can only sit by a fire everything will be okay for a day. He smashes the rocks together again and again. If he sees a spark, he tells himself, there will be light and warmth and hope.

The spark never comes.


	15. One Day

Usopp is older now, and mostly unencumbered by the feelings of guilt that accompany thoughts of Merry and tears shed on a dock while choking out an apology and the weight of worry over not being strong heavy on his shoulders.

He trained, and he trained _hard_. When he looks in the mirror, he is pleased by what he sees for the first time - legs like toothpicks no more, shoulders that were once too wide for his needle-thin frame filled out, chest no longer painfully skinny but good and strong. If he left Syrup village like this, it's not a boy that Kaya would see walking away, but the broad back of a man.

Luffy will become pirate king. Zoro will become the greatest swordsman in the very world that Nami will map, and every island Nami maps will be scoured for Robin's poneglyphs and roamed by a doctor that will cure every disease. Upon that map there will be All Blue, written reverently in Nami's unerring script and filled with all the love Sanji has for it, there will be Raftel where Franky's ship will have taken them. And there they will see Laboon and music will play as sweet and clear as Usopp imagines the waters of All Blue to be.

One day, that _will_ happen. But what makes a warrior of the sea, Usopp wonders, and will he ever get there? It means something beyond strength. It's something that comes within.

He wants to look at his father in the eye someday and tell him that he too is a brave warrior of the sea, wants his father to see it too, to be proud.

But when that day comes, if that day comes, how will he know?


End file.
